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UMW Psychology Faculty Receive IndieFab Book of the Year Award

University of Mary Washington faculty members Miriam Liss and Holly Schriffrin’s book Balancing the Big Stuff has recently been named the 2014 Silver Winner for Psychology in Foreword Reviews’ IndieFab Book of the Year Awards.

Miriam Liss and Holly Schiffrin

Exemplifying the best work coming from today’s indie authors and publishers, the winners were selected from more than 1,500 entries in 63 categories from independent and university presses. Gold, silver, bronze and honorable mention awards were determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers and announced at a special program during the American Library Association Annual Conference in San Francisco on June 26, 2015.

Liss, professor of psychology, and Schriffin, associate professor of psychology, wrote Balancing the Big Stuff to fill a gap they recognized in the conversation about work and family balance.

“We noticed that there was not enough discussion about the actual psychological literature on what makes people happy and what is best for children,” said Liss, an internationally known expert on parenting, division of labor and work-family balance issues. “The book emphasizes that there are many right ways to parent. Parents should be less hard on themselves and focus more on whether they are meeting their own intrinsic needs as well as the needs of their children.”

A licensed clinical psychologist, Liss had conducted extensive research on intensive and attachment parenting, sensory processing sensitivity, self-injurious behaviors, feminist identity and body image. Her articles have been published in numerous journals including the Sex Roles, Psychology of Women Quarterly, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, and Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines. She is recipient of the 2015 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia, and also has been named one of the Princeton Review’s Best 300 Professors.

An expert on intensive and helicopter parenting and a clinical psychologist, Schiffrin also is the co-author of Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood. Her research on helicopter parenting published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies–with colleagues at the University of Mary Washington–has garnered international media attention, including The Guardian, Real Simple and Time magazine. Schiffrin’s scholarly research has been published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, Food and Nutrition Bulletin, Research in Development Disabilities, the Journal of Positive Psychology, Cyberpsychology and Behavior, and the Journal of Development & Behavioral Pediatrics.